EDABAD/LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Hardline Hindu groups are demanding restrictions on Muslim girls wearing hijab in classrooms in more Indian states after a court upheld a ban on the traditional headscarf in Karnataka state, worrying students who had protested against the ban.
The Karnataka High Court decision on Tuesday, backing the southern state’s ban on the hijab in February, has also been welcomed by top federal ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who say students should avoid wearing religious clothing in class.
A female Muslim student has already appealed the verdict in the country’s highest court, which could take up the matter later this month, her lawyer said on Twitter on Wednesday.
There is no national guideline on uniforms in India, and states often leave it to schools to decide what their students should wear.
“We are a Hindu nation and we do not want to see any kind of religious outfit in educational institutes of the country,” said Rishi Trivedi, president of the Hindu-first group Akhil Bharat Hindu MahaSabha.
“We welcome the court verdict and want the same rule to be followed throughout the country.”
The ban in BJP-ruled Karnataka had sparked protests by Muslim students and parents, and counter-protests by Hindu students. Critics of the ban say it is another way of marginalizing the Muslim community that accounts for about 13% of Hindu-majority India’s 1.35 billion people.
Leaders of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), an affiliate of the RSS, the BJP’s parent organization, said they have asked for a hijab ban in Modi’s home state of Gujarat and would soon write to the country’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh. The BJP is in power in both states.
“The hijab is not allowed in the defense forces, police, and government offices, then why the insistence on hijab in schools and colleges?” said VHP’s Gujarat secretary, Ashok Raval. “It is an attempt to raise communal tensions.”
Ayesha Hajeera Almas - who had challenged the Karnataka ban in court - said there is a real fear that the hijab ban will now go national.
The 18-year-old said she has not attended school since late December after its authorities barred Muslim girls from wearing the hijab, even before the state-wide ban came in early February.